Are there more important things in a relationship than great sex?
March 19, 2009 by Cathy Meyer
Filed under Love & Intimacy, NoMore, Relationships
Submitted by: Delaine Moore
Not long ago, a girlfriend of mine had a conversation with her husband that went like this:
“So…did you have fun with the guys playing poker last night?”
“Yup.”
She sat there waiting…finally : “So what do you guys talk about when you meet up?”
He looked at her like she was green. “What do you mean?”
“Do you talk about work? Sports? Sex? Do you complain about your wives? What?”
He sighed. “We don’t get all personal the way you and your friends do if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But you do talk about your wives?”
He could tell she wasn’t going to leave it alone. “YES. We do talk about our wives. But we don’t complain about how much money they’re spending or if they’ve gained weight. No one ever complains about his wife being a bad mom. The only complaint that goes around the table time and time again on any given night is that they aren’t getting enough sex.”
When my girlfriend relayed this conversation to me I was irritated. Stupid, insensitive men, I thought. Maybe if they helped their wives out with workload around the house, they’d more amorously-inclined instead of exhausted.
But later on, my friend’s conversation made internal alarm bells go off. For truly, how long can men (or women) go without ‘enough’?
My ex-husband didn’t go long – he cheated on me three years into our marriage. I’d known we’d had problems in our sex life – but I thought there were way more important things in a relationship than sex. Like our three infant children. Our trust and love of one another. All that we’d built together. You know – important stuff.
One look at infidelity statistics show that fulfilling sex IS really important to most people. An estimated 50-62% of women cheat on their husbands, compared to 70% of married men. Moreover, one partner in 80% of marriages has an affair.
So maybe sex SHOULD be at the top of our lists when we assess the happiness level in our relationships. Cause at the end of the day, how long can anyone go without feeling PASSION of some sort?
Delaine
I lived for 13 years with no passion. That was about 12 years too long. There can’t be a marriage without an intimate, passionate connection between spouses. There can be pretence but not a marriage.
I’m always puzzled when spouses who put other things before sex in their marriage are surprised when their spouse cheats.
I know that young mothers are tired. There are children to raise, bills to pay and the libido goes into hiding. What they don’t understand is that men connect with their wives through intimacy.
Husbands and wives who are doing without aren’t nagging about sex because they want to get their rocks off. They are wanting to maintain an intimate connection with their spouse and when that intimate connection there some will go looking elsewhere for it.
I never looked elsewhere but I will always wonder why I didn’t AND I will always wonder why my ex didn’t care enough about his relationship with me to nurture an intimate connection instead of ignore my need for one.
I think the world is full of people like me…people who are wondering why their spouse doesn’t care enough to make sex and important part of the marriage.
I thought I had gone too long at 8-9 years without passion/sex. I agree, that is way too long. There were a lot of other things wrong with my marriage as well but the loss of the intimacy was one of the first things to go. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t like the person he was becoming and that translated into not being physically attracted to him anymore. I am looking forward to rediscovering that passionate, sensual, sexual part of me.
Sex is the big connector – the main barometer of what is going good (or bad) in your marriage. I know that a good romp can dissipate a million bad feelings and reconnect spouses in a way nothing else can. Lack of it allows everything else to build and build until it blows up. And anyone who says that sex isn’t that important is not only lying to themselves but is setting themselves up for a rude awakening when the want and need for passion becomes so great that cheating becomes a justification. I tried to live in a sexless marriage (did for over 10 years) and tried to convince myself there were more important things to focus on in order to minimize my latent frustrations. But deep down I craved it and ultimately knew it would come down to leaving and/or cheating on my spouse. I did both. But having fantastic sex after a 20 year drought made me realize what I was missing and that I could never compromise that vital part of myself, that vital componant of my womanhood ever again. Men need that as well – it is a primal drive you cannot logic away. And it is their main way of connecting to their woman. It is how they express themselves – more freely and openly than they can with words. ’tis true.